Failing His Children?
by Kat Lee formerly Pirate Turner
Summary: He always knew what they had been into, rather they had been seen or unseen, kept safe or gone running headfirst into danger. Drabble.


Title: "Failing His Children?"  
Author: Kat Lee, formerly Pirate Turner  
Rating: G  
Summary: He always knew what they had been into, rather they had been seen or unseen, kept safe or gone running headfirst into danger.  
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters, names, codenames, places, items, fandoms, titles, and etc. are always © & TM their respective owners, not the author, and are used without permission. Any and all original characters and everything else is © & TM the author and may not be reproduced in any way without the author's express, written permission. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.  
Author's Note: 244. That's the number of stories that were sitting on my hard drive collecting dust because I lack the energy and time to take care of them as I once did. My betaing pattern has always been to write, then type up if written on paper, the story, read it aloud to my beloved Jack and our children, editing as I go, and then finally format and post. Sadly, this part is simply taking too much of my time and energy, and my beloved Jack and I have too little time together in person these days to be able to keep up with my stories. So what to do? Give up writing? I actually considered it for a while, tried to make excuses to myself other than the large number of stories collecting cyber dust on my computer, as to why I lacked the energy and Muse to write new tales. And then, with the turn of the new year, I decided to stop running and face the problem. The problem is, quite frankly, that once one gets so bogged down in formatting and editing that writing is no longer a pleasure but the actual posting of those writings becomes a hassle and - egad! - work, it's time to cut something out, and that will never be the writing process. So, in short, yes, there will be mistakes in this tale. Yes, it's missing about half of the header information I usually include. But I wrote it for pleasure and am posting it in hopes of sharing that pleasure with others. Do with it as you will.

He didn't need the newspapers to tell him the truth of his children's shenanigans. He didn't need to trail them, have a friend follow them, or Leonardo boast of his own successes and his brothers' failures. He always knew what they had been into, rather they had been seen or unseen, kept safe or gone running headfirst into danger.

He could see it all in their eyes and posture and always knew when they were lying or thinking of fibbing. To his credit, Leonardo had only ever lied to him to protect his brothers. Donatello was almost as honorable, having lied only twice to him and both in his younger days. The first had been to protect Michelangelo when they were both tots and Donnie had tried to take the blame for breaking the television. The other had again occurred when he had still been too young to realize that his Sensei would never punish him for using his intellect to invent things meant to be useful and, especially, life-saving. He had feared Splinter would forbid him from experiments when his latest invention, only his sixteenth at the tender age of four, had nearly wiped out the entire city.

Both Leonardo and Donatello had been unable to bring themselves to look up during their lies. They had also shuffled their feet, twisted their hands behind their shells, and kept their heads and shells lowered the entire time they had continued their untruths. Although Splinter would never punish them for their intellect or protecting their brothers, he'd had to punish them for lying but had made completely clear to them the real reasons why they were being punished before doing so.

Sadly, lying came a lot more frequently out of his other sons. Michelangelo lied any time he thought he might be able to escape punishment for something he'd done. He tried his best to distract Splinter each time, and his hands were always as busy as his mouth. The more he talked and changed the subject, however, the more he gave himself away.

Another trait that gave Mikey away was that he was constantly looking everywhere but at Splinter when lying. Like his calmer brothers, he couldn't face his father when fibbing. Raphael could, though, and that saddened Splinter more than any lies his sons could ever tell. What saddened him even more was the sadness reflected back at him from Raphael's dark eyes. It was a haunting, aching sadness as he yearned for something Splinter continuously tried to give him, had sworn when he was still little that he would succeed in chasing away his sadness, and yet still had not.

Splinter sighed as Raphael walked away from telling him yet another lie while looking directly into his eyes to begin his flips. His tail swished. He felt like such a failure, but that feeling was swiftly vanquished as his other sons, his honorable boys, came and covered him in hugs. Still, he made that old promise yet again.

**The End**


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